(BLOOMINGTON) - Wednesday afternoon, Indiana University President Adam Herbert confirmed speculation when he named Kelvin Sampson as the new men's basketball coach at Indiana University.

Herbert then briefly spoke of a vision of Indiana men's basketball in the future. "Our new coach is the right man to maintain and build upon IU's long and storied traditions. IU basketball is an elite program that plays by the rulesand graduates its student athletes," Herbert said.

Herbert then turned over the microphone over to Indiana athletic director Rick Greenspan who referred to Sampson's previous teams as "hard-nosed, disciplined and unselfish."

Sampson then approached the podium and quickly received an uproar of cheers and applause from the crowd that had gathered for the annoucement inside Assembly Hall.

"Indiana is one of those special places where you say 'basketball', and Indiana is an automatic word association. Every coach sees it as a great basketball state with tremendous high school coaches and players, and we will do our best to keep those players in the state." Sampson said.

The Hoosiers were 19-12 this season and reached the second round of the Men's NCAA Tournament and were then elimated by Gonzaga.

Sampson replaces former Indiana University basketball coach Mike Davis, who resigned from head coach status at the end of the 2005-06 season.